by Judy Handley | Jan 1, 2015 | Passage to FL, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 83, Year 10: Passage to FL, Day 3—Cumberland Island, GA Arrival
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2015
Weather: Overcast All Day, High in the low-60’s F, NE Wind 15-20
Latitude: 30 46.013 N
Longitude: 081 28.289 W
Location: Anchored Off Cumberland Island, Georgia
Miles Traveled: 262 Nautical Miles
Happy New Year! We anchored off Cumberland Island this morning around 10:15 after a rough night and a really rough entry from the sea. But we made it. The rough night was due to strong winds from the North, 18-22 knots, directly, and I do mean directly, behind us. We motored, keeping only the main sail up and centered it as tightly as we could, but still it slatted back and forth, back and forth, as the waves threw us one way and then the other. Dead downwind sailing is tough. In retrospect, we probably should have sailed further out to sea and then tacked back in this morning. Instead of motoring, we could have been sailing and we think the conditions would have been much smoother. Live and learn. And after a rough night, the entry from the sea was even rougher. Another tactical error. The tide was coming out and the wind was blowing in, causing standing waves. We now remember reading that you should only enter here with the tide, but the ‘remembering’ came too late. We were just anxious to get in and anchored, so we went for it. As a result, we had things thrown all over the place down below. I could hear the words of a friend from Concord, NH, who once said to us, “And you do this for fun?” Admittedly, we’re feeling a bit ‘rusty’, not yet in full cruising mode, and not paying close enough attention to the details, so we spent this evening thinking ahead to the next leg of the journey, checking tides as well as wind. It is looking like we might be able to leave here on Monday and do another two day, two night passage to either Fort Pierce or Lake Worth. If we make it to Lake Worth, we’ll spend a couple of days there before heading on to Fort Lauderdale. At least that is a tentative plan. We need to talk to Lee and Lynda tomorrow and see if they are in agreement with that plan.
In addition to the rough sailing conditions, we also had a mechanical issue. After I sent last night’s log, Mark was playing around with the auto pilot. He put it in stand-by to hand steer for a minute while he was making an adjustment and discovered that we had no steering. The wheel just spun around. Yikes! Obviously we had a problem with the steering cable or maybe the chain that links the wheel to the cable. So Mark started trouble-shooting. This first required taking the compass off the binnacle (the column in the cockpit to which the wheel attaches). Once the compass was removed he could look down in the column and see that the problem was not with the chain. Good. Next he had to remove the mattress from the aft cabin bed and get underneath it to check out the cable where it wraps around the quadrant. The quadrant is attached to the rudder which steers the boat. And sure enough, the problem was there. One of the two steering cables was broken. Mark was able to cobble things together so that we once again have manual steering, but we will have to replace the cable as soon as we can. It is something that has to be ordered, so we’ll probably try to make it to Ft. Lauderdale before tackling that job. Thankfully the auto pilot attaches directly to the quadrant, circumventing the cable, so we can still steer the boat using auto. And for now, the temporary fix allows us to also manually steer the boat. For that we are thankful. But this was not the before dinner project we were looking for on New Year’s Eve.
To add insult to injury, today we discovered a problem with our dinghy engine. Happy New Year! The first thing we always do after anchoring is launch the dinghy. When Mark tried to pull the cord to start the engine, it would not pull. He then had to spend the rest of the day working on this. He and Lee worked together and got the pull start working. The engine runs, but only revs and then dies. Since Lee and Lynda’s dinghy has a hole in it and our motor won’t work, we are going to have to combine forces and use their motor on our dinghy. Mark hopes to get this done tomorrow morning and then take the dinghy the five or miles over to Fernandina Beach to get someone to work on the Yamaha. The weather was ugly today, overcast, windy, and cool, and is now forecast to be the same tomorrow. So it will be a good day for working on problems. Then on Saturday, when the sun is supposed to shine, hopefully we’ll get to explore Cumberland Island. The year 2015 has come in like a lion for us. But really all of these issues are just small stuff; nothing major, just not allowing for a smooth, upbeat beginning to the year. It will improve.
by Judy Handley | Dec 31, 2014 | Passage to FL, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 82, Year 10: Passage to FL, Day 2–New Year’s Eve
Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Weather: Overcast All Morning, Sunny in the Afternoon, High 50’s F, NE Wind 10
Latitude: 31 55.561 N
Longitude: 080 46.149 W
Location: Motor Sailing ~5 Miles Off the Georgia Coast, Just S of Savannah
Miles Traveled: 172 Nautical Miles
It’s New Year’s Eve and we will spend our evening celebrating our trek south. The weather has not been perfect, but it has been as good as you could ask for this time of year. The north winds are holding, but are light today. Thus we are motor sailing. But the seas are relatively calm and the temperature is rising. The sun came out this afternoon and the outside temp is in the 50’s F. When we reach Cumberland Island tomorrow, the temp will reach the 60’s and then the 70’s on Friday. Woohoo! It did get cold in the cockpit last night, but wrapping up in a polar fleece blanket kept us warm enough. The main cabin has maintained a temp of 68 degrees F, so it is cozy below. Lee and Lynda had an unfortunate happening today, but at least it is nothing that can’t be fixed. They carry their inflatable dinghy on a rack on their reverse transom and the wishy, washy motion of a downwind sail caused their dinghy to repetitively move against something that rubbed a hole. I can remember the feeling when we reached St. Martin in 2005 of opening the clothes closet to find nicely rubbed holes in the sleeves of shirts that touched the bungee cord I had wrapped around the clothes to keep them away from the metal hardware on the closet door. Subsequently I put a towel between the clothes and the bungee cord which solved that problem. So the lesson here is that if there is anything on a boat that can move and it rubs against another item, a hole will result. Lesson number two, which I should know well, is that anything that is not tied down will fall over. We have a big plastic bin that normally sits upside down on the back deck protecting our generator from the weather. On passage, we bring the generator into the cockpit and put the bin in the v-berth. Mark filled it with paper towel rolls and then I threw in some new books and put a big plastic carton of eggs on top thinking it was a nice soft place to store the extra eggs. Of course, the bin flipped over and everything came tumbling out. Lucky for us, the eggs did not break. If they had, I can’t even imagine the mess in the v-berth.
I’m reading a book Justin and Jo got me for Christmas. It’s a novel about a lightkeeper and his wife who live on Janus Island. Good book, “The Light Between Oceans” by M. L. Stedman. But I mention it here because the origin of the word January is mentioned in the book. Janus Island is at the end of a line of sea mounts jutting out from the southwest coast of Australia. On one side of the island is the Indian Ocean and on the other is the Southern Pacific. In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of beginnings and transitions The word comes from the Latin word for door and Janus has two faces—one looking back into the past and the other looking forward into the future. When you stop and think about it, January is like a door you go through to the new year, but not before looking back at the old. So when you are reminiscing tonight, think of old two-faced Janus. And have a very Happy New Year!
by Judy Handley | Dec 30, 2014 | Passage to FL, Sailing Logs Year 10 |
Day 81, Year 10: Passage to FL, Day 1–Sailing, Sailing . . .
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Weather: Overcast, High in the 40’s F, NNE Wind 15-20
Latitude: 33 26.630 N
Longitude: 079 00.977 W
Location: Sailing ~5 Miles Off the South Carolina Coast
Miles Traveled: 40.8 Nautical Miles
And we are off . . . sailing, sailing over the waters blue-green. It was a bit of a rocky start for Lee and Lynda as they woke up to a boat with no power. The problem seemed to be the new inverter, but after reading the manual, they discovered a reset switch which put them back in business. Friends Roger and Jane Bonner came to see us off and Windbird and Sea Turtle pulled out of the marina at about 10:30 am. At 5 pm we are south of Murrells Inlet, but won’t reach the Georgetown inlet area until after dark. We are less than 5 miles offshore, so we can see the shore. Sometime tomorrow we will pass Charleston, SC, then Savannah, GA, and hopefully reach Cumberland Island on Thursday morning. Sailing at its best is not fast, but we are making great progress. The NNE winds are pushing us along on fairly calm seas. A downwind sail is always a little wishy, washy, and we are going a little faster than needed in order to reach our destination in the early morning hours on Thursday. But the wind is not predicted to be as strong tomorrow, so it will probably all even out. I am just thrilled that the conditions were good for sailing today and that we are not totally freezing to death. Mid-afternoon we turned on the Mr. Heater propane stove in the main cabin and the heat is rising to the cockpit. It is now almost 70 degrees downstairs and probably near 60 degrees here in the cockpit. It is definitely polar fleece weather, but not really freezing cold. This is good.
